Ron Howard is Seriously Pissing Off Albinos

For those of you who don't live in a cave in Montana, you've probably heard that Ron Howard (a.k.a. Opey Taylor from the Andy Griffith Show) is directing the movie version of the mega-ultra-superific-blockbuster book The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. The last time I checked on the New York Times Bestseller List, it had sold like 5.99 billion copies worldwide. If you haven't read it, it's like you and most of the people who live in Mississippi (they can't read).

One of the villains in the book is an albino, we'll call him Silas, because that's what his name is in the book, and I don't want like 100 emails from The Da Vinci Code fan club. Everyone already knows that albinos are evil. To further the point, the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation (NOAH) is pressuring Ron Howard to change the character, so the villain is not an albino. If you don't believe me, I understand my credibility is lacking this week, but seriously click here to read the press release. Here is information about albinism and some creepy pictures to drive the point home.

This whole campaign by the albinos to get Ron Howard to change the movie pisses me off. First of all, I hate censorship. Last time I checked being an albino doesn't take away your free will, so if you don't agree, then don't see the damned movie. Encourage your friends not to see the movie. Protest, if you can handle being out in the sun long enough. Just stop trying to guilt the director of a major motion picture into changing the movie because you don't like how your group of people is portrayed.

Secondly, where the hell was NOAH when the book came out? About everyone (outside of Mississippi, of course) on earth has read the damned book, experienced the stereotype, now obviously has a preconceived notion that all albinos are evil. If your mission is to advocate for people who lack pigmentation and to present them in a more positive light, you probably should have tackled this one before it spent the last 5 years on the NY Times Bestseller list.

The problem with the idea that the movie is going to create or reinforce existing stereotypes about the inherent sinister nature of albinos is that it doesn't add up. Just because I saw an evil albino in a movie or ten through the years, doesn't mean that I think albinos are evil. Give people some credit here. I'm more likely to have a negative opinion of an albino that I meet because NOAH is trying to censor an integral part of a movie.

Any movie with a plot conveys some person or group of people as the villain. We've all had our turn. Most of us Irish people were too drunk to care, but the book and subsequent movie, Patriot Games, portrayed the Irish as a bunch of terrorists. Did I send Tom Clancy a letter and ask him to change it? Hell no. Because I knew that my friends had the required brain power to understand that the people in the movie were characters, and were not modeled after every single Irish person in the world. See how easy it is to think for yourself? Maybe NOAH should stick to their advocacy, instead of trying to leech publicity off of a major motion picture.